Agatha said goodbye to her family. She had lived a great life and she was ready for whatever came next, even though she couldn’t be sure what that was.
She didn’t feel the moment she left her body. As far as she could tell, one minute she was lying in the hospital bed, the next she was surrounded by warmth and light. She wanted to bask in it forever, but she felt herself rudely yanked back down.
She found herself hovering above the earth, not of it, but not where she wanted to go either. It appeared to be some kind of limbo.
“What on earth?”
“You new here?” another soul asked her.
“I am. And I appear to be stuck.”
“That happens to a lot of newbies. It’s because you’re loved ones are still grieving you. They haven’t let go yet.”
“Oh. So, they get to determine when I …” she trailed off, not sure what the proper terminology was.
“Ascend. And, yes, they do.”
Agatha felt a sudden welling of resentment. As if she hadn’t given up enough for her family in her lifetime, now they were denying her the ability to pass on, too?
She tried to practice the deep breathing techniques she had learned, only to realize she couldn’t breathe.
“So, when can I expect them to let me go?”
“It’s different for everyone, but it doesn’t usually take too long. Time moves differently up here, so it won’t feel as long to you as it will to them.”
“OK. That doesn’t sound too bad.”
So Agatha settled in to wait. She got to watch her own funeral, which tickled her. All the times she had heard people say they wanted to see their own funeral and here she was, watching hers. She saw people grieve and cry and hold each other. People said the same token words of “comfort” to her family over and over until they lost what little meaning they might ever have had. She saw people laugh and share stories and they all said wonderful things about her – even the people to whom she had barely spoken. Who even was that guy talking about her faith? Agatha had never had a firm faith, for which she was grateful, because nothing she had ever read in the Bible had ever said anything about this.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. Agatha knew that now. Along with being able to see her friends and family, she could see everyone else in the world. She saw their love and joy and pain and struggle, and while, on some level, she still felt an attachment to her loved ones, she also recognized just how insignificant their struggles were when weighed against the struggles of seven billion other people.
To be continued…